Sports Calendar

Ms Harman borrowed a significant amount of money to fight her campaign. With a debt of £10,000 secured on a personal loan from a high street bank, Ms Harman’s team had approached known Labour donors.

One, Vinod Popat, a Leicester entrepreneur, told The Times last night that he was asked to give to Ms Harman, whom he had never met, by Patricia Hewitt. Far from Ms Harman receiving Mrs Kidd’s cheque out of the blue it now appeared that it had been solicited along with others from fronts designed to disguise donors’ identities.

Shortly before 5pm Labour’s deputy sent out a second statement, again protesting that she had not known that Mrs Kidd was an agent of Mr Abrahams. Ms Harman said: “I don’t know whether my campaign team contacted her or she contacted my team.”

As long as no evidence emerges to challenge her version of events, most seasoned observers believe that Ms Harman can weather the storm in the short term.

“We didn’t accept it because we felt that if Mr Abrahams wanted to make a donation, he could do so in his own name”

Hilary Benn’s spokesman

“I had no reason to believe that this donation was coming from anyone other than Janet Kidd. My campaign team understood Janet Kidd to be a regular Labour Party donor”

Harriet Harman

The five inquiries

— Internal investigation by Chris Lennie, acting general secretary, and NEC officers to establish facts

— Wider inquiry by Lord Whitty, a former general secretary, to recommend changes

— External review of procedural changes by Lord McCluskey, a retired judge, and Lord Harries of Pentregarth, former Bishop of Oxford

— Investigation by Electoral Commission into why David Abrahams’s role was not declared

— Possible police investigation

Times Recommends

• UK regional accents thrive against the odds
• ‘Scarecrow’ wind farms put rare birds to flight
• What an anti-climax: G-spot is a myth